The air in the building chilled my bones, while something invisible in the spacious atrium suddenly crackled. The only thing I knew was to get out of there, the place cold as the freezing water flowing through the faucet in the early spring. I managed to escape from the building in just thirty seconds, thanks to a nearby elevator, the greatest invention in human history. Then I remembered there was another place I ought to go, and I was late. I was always late, late for an appointment, an exam, a life, and a death. Always late for something, I could not stop things from happening. Thus, I must get there, to the place I promised to go.

Rushing and cursing all the way, I stepped out of the magnificent building. At once, the vigorous sun poured out and spilled on my entire face. Squinting at the blurred horizon veiled by the sunlight, my bleary eyes recognized that this was another brutal summer, without any clemency. However, the journey had to hasten on since my bike had not yet been found. I needed the bike more than ever to go to that place because I had to make it. The rustling sounds of the trees became louder whenever I was one step nearer my bike. That double-wheeled transportation was black, just like everything else I had. The color of elegies. While muttering about how anyone would steal an ominous thing like that, I found my bike right where it was.

Yet, nothing really remained where it was from the start. I remembered this kind of summer; I remembered this kind of humid summer days. Actually, I remembered every summer, and the most atrocious one took away something from me forever on the day exactly like this one. I lost something important in my life in a similar summer, and I was too late to do anything. For the rest of my life, I am bound to suffer from my inexcusable lateness and the loss it brought.

To this day, my dog, a 14-year companion, had been dead for almost a year. She died of old age on a day sparkled with sunshine and hot as hell. I still could not forget on the morning our dog left us, the three words my sister uttered: “She just died.” The next thing I recalled was I rushing along with my sister, trying to get back home. Naively thinking if I could get back as soon as possible, I might have had one last chance to see my dog alive, but all there was, after all the sobbing and confusion during the trip, was my dog already passing away to another realm. I collapsed on the damp porch when seeing her body in a transparent chest. The sun shone through the window panes as the cicadas sang. I did not dare to look into her blue eyes deeper than the oceans, knowing nothing was there anymore. Her departure meant the first death in the twenty years of my life, and an eternal loss never to be recuperated.

Death continued to nibble at my life, though the one alive turned back to one’s affairs. Somehow, I clenched the death with me; whenever the overarching sun dyed the world red, yellow, and white, I thought of that day when my dearest friend died. I knew, in fact, it was not death but time that took her away: It was her time to go. Yet, I had shamelessly lived on through time, the ruthless grim reaper. I had changed within the force of time, leaving home to begin a new chapter. I left my friend home waiting and waiting for me to go back. Then she stopped waiting one day, transcending the earthly time that tied her down to my own course of time.

Time whirling in a grim gyre made me queasy; however, I was fully aware of getting to a place I promised to go. This day was silent, but I rode through a string of faint sounds only I could hear, the sounds of remembrance and repentance. Suddenly, I realized that I could never extricate myself from the abyss of time. Even to this day, I was still chasing time to no avail. I was destined to be late, like the day when I could not make it to be there with my friend. Nonetheless, it was time that healed and pushed me forward; I was hurt and saved by time itself.

Water drops dripped down and evaporated instantly, as the salty water in my heart dried. I could see I was about to arrive at the destination, and the sun oblivious to human misery, was brighter than ever. I slowed down but did not stop. Whatever might happen, I must carry on. I must pass the time lost and the time I would hold on to.